Flood building’s days are numbered

The outside of the Flood Middle School building remains largely unchanged, but crews are hard at work completing inside work and asbestos removal so crews can begin demolishing the structure.

Once the site is cleared, work will begin on construction of a 310-apartment complex. The main building will be on the site of the Flood building and a second building will be constructed across the street to the east.

The school district hired Majors Environmental Service to prepare the site for construction.

“Right now, Rocky Mountain Environmental crews are completing the asbestos removal and other inside work,” said Billy Major of Major Environmental Services. “We expect Alpine Demolition will move equipment into place to start taking the building down about the first week of June.”

Major said the building had been empty for several years, so in March, the first job was to clean away the debris so crews could begin work. Inside demolition began in late April.

He said the project has been a challenge because the original Flood school was built in the 1920s, but there have been additions and construction on the building up through the 1990s. The result is, crews often take down a wall only to find a second wall that isn’t on the blueprints.

But work has moved forward. Few if any walls remain untouched as crews stripped out all materials that can be recycled, like copper pipes and wiring and metal studs.

At the same time, Rocky Mountain Environmental has been removing asbestos from the uilding.

Asbestos removal must, by law, be done in areas completely contained. To comply with the laws, huge walls of thick plastic were set in place and sealed off from the outside. Crews working inside the sealed area must wear protective suits and respirators.

One big task was removing a coating used on the block walls that contained asbestos. Adan Aurtlie, a Rocky Mountain supervisor, said the company employed a special water-basting system that stripped away the coating with water a spray of water rated at 40,000 pounds per square inch. All the asbestos-contaminated material is collected, bagged and taken to a hazardous material disposal area.

Major said work inside the building will continue as Alpine begins building demolition.

“We expect they will begin demolishing the portion of the building constructed in the 1960s, which includes the music room and the east wing,” he said “However, Alpine are the demolition experts and they will determine the work area and set the schedule to take down the building and prepare the ground for construction.”

There are no records of time capsules but it is possible one or more are located in the building.

“We have asked the demolition crews to be on the lookout for time capsules as they do their work because we feel, if there are time capsules, they are important pages in local history and need to be preserved,” Major said.